III
It was half an hour after midday when Percy knocked at the door of her boudoir. She had just come in from a walk in the meadows round the town and along the bank of the river: the rain had overtaken her and she had come in very wet, but none the less exhilarated by the movement and the keen, damp, salt-laden air which came straight over the hills from the Channel. She had taken off her hat and her mantle and was laughing gaily with her maid who was shaking the wet out of a feather. She looked round at her husband when he entered, and with a quick gesture ordered the maid out of the room.
She had learned to read every line on Percy's face, every expression of his lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. She saw that he was dressed with more than his usual fastidiousness, but in dark clothes and travelling mantle. She knew, moreover, by that subtle instinct which had become a second nature and which warned her whenever he meant to go.
Nor did he announce his departure to her in so many words. As soon as the maid had gone, he took his beloved in his arms.
"They have stolen Tony's wife from him," he said with that light, quaint laugh of his. "I told you that the man Martin-Roget had planned some devilish mischief—well! he has succeeded so far, thanks to that unspeakable fool the duc de Kernogan."
He told her briefly the history of the past few days.
"Tony did not take my warning seriously enough," he concluded with a sigh; "he ought never to have allowed his wife out of his sight."
Marguerite had not interrupted him while he spoke. At first she just lay in his arms, quiescent and listening, nerving herself by a supreme effort not to utter one sigh of misery or one word of appeal. Then, as her knees shook under her, she sank back into a chair by the hearth and he knelt beside her with his arms clasped tightly round her shoulders, his cheek pressed against hers. He had no need to tell her that duty and friendship called, that the call of honour was once again—as it so often has been in the world—louder than that of love.
She understood and she knew, and he, with that supersensitive instinct of his, understood the heroic effort which she made.
"Your love, dear heart," he whispered, "will draw me back safely home as it hath so often done before. You believe that, do you not?"
And she had the supreme courage to murmur: "Yes!"